2325. 🇮🇳 India Post Commemorates Meeting Of Shanghai Co-operation Council.

 

New issues.

🇮🇳 India Post -

15 June 2023 - Virtual meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation Council of Heads of State hosted by India - 1 stamp. Rating:- *. As can be seen from the flags of the member states of this organisation depicted below, India has ties to Russia and China through this organisation. Other members are the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well as Pakistan. 

🇨🇦 Canada Post -

21 June 2023 - ‘Indigenous leaders’ - 2 self-adhesive stamps from 2 booklets, each containing 6 identical stamps (see also Blog 2322) and 1 miniature sheet containing the 3 different stamps, Thelma Chalifot (Métis activist) 1929-2017 and George Manuel (Neskonlith Indian Band of the Secwepec Nation). Designed by Lime Design from an illustration by Christi Belcourt (Chalifot) and Andrew Perro from an illustration by Tania Willard & photograph by Peter Hofle (Manuel). Lithographed by Lowe Martin. Rating:- ****.

🇦🇬 Antigua And Barbuda -

  Somewhat surprisingly I think, WOPA, the Gibraltar-based organisation which eases the sale at face value of philatelic items to collectors, has admitted the sales of philatelic products from Antigua and Barbuda to the growing list of territories it covers. Almost every philatelic product which is released by, or in the name of, the Antigua and Barbuda postal service is produced by and distributed by the New York-based organisation, Intergovernmental Philatelic Corporation (IGPC), so it will be interesting to see from whence these WOPA-ordered products are dispatched to buyers - New York or Antigua.

  🇶🇦 Collectors may also be interested to read that WOPA has also recently included Qatar Post on the list of postal authorities with which it deals.

🇬🇬 Guernsey Post -

Tweets reporting Post and Go issues with one day additional inscriptions commemorating visiting cruise ships.

15 June 2023 - Return visit of the Regal Princess -

2034. 🇲🇹 WOPA Still Selling Maltese Stamps Which Indicated Crimea Is Part Of Putin’s Russia. 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

 

🇲🇹 Current events.

The Gibraltar-based agency, WOPA, continues to feature on the MaltaPost section of its internet sales site, a disgraceful stamp to which this Blog drew attention in 2016 (see Blog 761). The stamp was part of a pair released as a joint issue between ‘MaltaPost and Russian Post’ to ‘celebrate their countries’ longstanding relations’. 

  The issue features two paintings by ‘Russian artist Nicholas Krassnoff’, one of which depicts the Dulber Palace in Crimea, a region of Ukraine, which was invaded and occupied by Russian forces at the orders of the increasingly megalomaniacal Russian President, Putin. Putin subsequently illegally annexed the Ukrainian territory to Russia in 18 March 2016. Just a few weeks later, on 24 May 2016, Malta Post issued the stamp which was designed by Marka, the Russian Post Office, clearly duped by the Russian authorities into depicting a scene in Ukrainian territory as though it was part of Russia. There was a mild kerfuffle in Malta at the time after this Blog drew attention to the way the authorities in Malta, a member state of the European Union and of The Commonwealth, had fallen into the clever Russian trap of apparently recognising, if only philatelically, that Crimea was part of Russia and not Ukraine but eventually the affair was viewed as not having any significance. 

  Everything that Putin does, and has done, has significance even if it is only the clever manipulation of the postal service of a member state of The European Union which results in one of its stamps giving tacit recognition to Russian ownership of Crimea.

  Now we see that Putin’s long game played against Ukraine has finally boiled over to full scale invasion of the whole of that innocent, peaceful, democratic country whose only crime was to be Putin’s next door neighbour. And we are seeing the deaths and destruction which result from the Russian tyrant’s increasingly mad obsession with restoring The Russian Empire and Soviet Union. And now there are scenes which remind us of Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland. The West has been pathetically weak in its response to his actions for years and with a particularly weak American President in office there can be little hope that Ukraine can be saved despite the valiant efforts of its President and people to repel the aggressors. If Ukraine falls, who can consider themselves safe while Putin remains Tsar?

  Meanwhile, a gesture of disapproval, which of course will not benefit the unfortunate Ukrainians in any way, would be for WOPA and MaltaPost to finally withdraw from sale the appalling stamps which ‘celebrate’ Malta’s close friendship with Russia. 

WOPA page selling Malta-Russia Friendship stamps.

  Better still,  postal services of those nations which admire the courage of the Ukrainian people might choose to rush out postage stamps acknowledging the free world’s solidarity with the brave Ukrainians and their repulsion at Putin’s behaviour. In practical terms, no philatelic response to the vicious Russian invasion can help the Ukrainian people but an issue of stamps, with its accompanying publicity, by well-wishing friends might help to reinforce their resolution to fight the invaders. And besides, various Russian regimes - Tsarist, Communist, Kleptocratic - have known how to use postage stamps as a practical form of propaganda and the post offices of the Free Nations could learn a lesson or two from them.

  In conclusion - once more - WOPA and MaltaPost STOP selling these 2016 stamps which you were duped into marketing 6 years ago.

Megalomaniacal tyrant of Russia, Putin “gone full tonto”.

Post scriptum.

Just to show that stamps really can have an impact here’s a remarkably apt and meaningful Tweet just posted by Linn’s Stamp News. For the map of Austria substitute that of Ukraine. Replace the Hitler mask with one with Putin’s face on it. I hope WOPA and MaltaPost take notice.

1122. 🇮🇲 Manx Fashion Stamps In 2018.

   🇮🇲 The Isle Of Man Post Office will issue a set of 6 stamps on 1 February 2018 to commemorate "20 Years of Preen by Thornton-Bregazzi", a fashion company founded by 2 former students of the Isle Of Man College. The featured clothing includes a red dress worn by The Duchess Of Cambridge on her tour of Canada and a "Citrus Power" dress worn by the late singer, Amy Whitehouse, and the actress, Gwyneth Paltrow though presumably not both at the same time.

  The designer of this issue, which is unusual in its subject matter, is EJC Design from images by Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi and lithographed by Cartor and perforated 13. Rating:- ****.

  🇨🇾 Cyprus Post will issue 6 Christmas stamps on 24 November 2017. The issue is made up of 3 stamps in a se-tenant strip which have a religious theme and 3 other stamps which depict children at Christmas-time including a se-tenant pair. With at least 3 different design styles in the set it's all a bit of a dog's dinner but the stamps are pleasant enough. Rating:- ***.

  🇯🇪 Illustrated below are 2 of the 24 Post and Go stamps issued by Jersey Post from kiosk BOO2 (6 inscribed in Jėrriais and 6 "Jersey Flag" stamps inscribed in English) and kiosk JE02, with added inscription "Broad Street", 6 again being inscribed in Jėrriais with 6 "Jersey Flag" stamps inscribed in English and all with additional trite and trivial "Angel" motif that any primary school child could have come with. It seems to me that this little lot will cost the collector the preposterous sum of £21.44p.plus extras including value added tax. Of all the small postal services, it seems that Jersey's is the most shameless in finding ways to extract money from collectors with no philatelic stone left unturned over the past few years. And yet I find myself buying fewer and fewer of its products. Rating:- 0.

  🇳🇿 Talking of preposterous sums. New Zealand Post's outrageous gold foil miniature sheets for the Chinese New Year, this time The Year of the Dog, have gone on sale on its website and have been sold or reduced to "low stocks". It seems that 25 of these "lucky" numbered sheets were produced with coloured stamps in them and purchasers seem to have paid NZ$1800 for each one. Yes really!

  But that's not all. There are 103 framed foiled miniature sheets being sold for NZ$560 (the stamps are entirely gold and have no colour in them), gold foiled unnumbered miniature sheets framed in perspex (NZ$188) and unnumbered gold foil miniature sheets with coloured designs sold for NZ$288.

  As a stamp issue, rating:- 0.

  The date of issue is 10 January 2017.

   🇧🇼 Botswana Post issued a set of 4 stamps and 1 miniature sheet on 5 October 2017 on the original and interesting subject of "Crossing Rivers". The issue was designed by Andrew Jones. I like this Issue very much. Rating:- *****.

  🇲🇻 WOPA, through which the new issues of a number of postal administrations and agencies can be ordered, upset a lot of collectors a couple of years when it began to include the numerous issues put out by Stamperija in the name of Maldives and which appeared to be sold by Maldives Post itself. In response to complaints, WOPA temporarily suspended its handling of Maldives stamps but very rapidly reverted to placing the new issues of Maldives, between 100 to 200 at one stage, on its website.

  Now, Maldives has disappeared from the list of territories being dealt with on WOPA's website. Whether or not it will reappear again remains to be seen.

  Although Maldives has left The Commonwealth I like to keep an eye on special issues from there though not of course the paraphilatelic pap put out by Stamperija, and I see that Maldives Post released a sheetlet of 8 stamps as part of a joint issue with Japan on 14 November 2017. The issue marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the 2 countries. The stamps are said to depict scenes from the visit of the Maldivian President, Abdulla Yammin, to Japan and photographs of some of the development projects carried out by Japan in Maldives.

  I do not yet have an illustration of the new stamps but below is a picture taken at the launch ceremony of the issue which was attended by the Japanese Ambassador to Maldives and Maldives Post officials. They are shown holding the new issue.

  The Japanese postal service also issued a sheetlet of 8 different stamps on the same date but the Japanese sheet is in vertical format and appears to feature different designs from those used in the Maldives issue.

  Joint issues commemorating anniversaries of the establishment of diplomatic relations between various countries are becoming increasingly common and are often reported in this Blog. Most commonly the People's Republic Of China likes to demonstrate that it has friendly relationships with other countries, particularly developing states where it is involving itself in various economic activities, through the philatelic medium and often donates issues to the postal services of such places. Japan likes to do the same and occasionally Taiwan will try to involve itself in such issues though, having very few countries which now have relations with it, its opportunities are now very few to do so.

  As I wrote in Blog 1119, the postal services of Western states, and in particular Royal Mail, are particularly inept at realising the usefulness of postage stamps in demonstrating their country's links with other parts of the world and trail miles behind China and Japan in using stamps for such a purpose. Pity.

1004. Maldives By The Back Door.

  🇲🇻 In Blogs 947 and 948 I highlighted the decision by WOPA to offer the stamps of "Maldives" on its website. There was much annoyance about this decision among collectors and subsequently WOPA suspended its sales pending a review. This decision was explained by Glendon Martinez, MD and co-founder of WOPA, in the Comment section of Blog 947 and greeted favourably by most collectors.

  This suspension of sales was pretty short-lived as it is perfectly easy to buy stamps inscribed
"Maldives" through the WOPA website again though the process is slightly furtive. If one visits the WOPA homepage Maldives is not shown as one of the territories being offered on the site but if the potential buyer clicks on the small subheading "Stamps" then Maldives does indeed appear among the list of countries whose stamps are being offered for sale and indeed even more stamps have been added to the list including new issues of 2017. It's rather like buying issues inscribed "Maldives" by going through a back door. The number of issues now being offered for sale are :-

  2015:- 5 issues

  2016:- 104 issues (!)

  2017:- 30 issues.

  One or two of the issues probably originate locally (2015 "50 Years of Independence" issue and 2016 "Handicraft of Maldives" sheet which is depicted below) but it is clear that the rest are typical products originating from Stamperija, the Lithuania-based Philatelic agency which is much despised by many new issue collectors for its extraordinary degree of overissuing of expensive philatelic items
which usually are irrelevant in subject matter to the client postal administrations whose names are
printed on such items.

  The link from WOPA to these issues takes the buyer to a list of issues where the page is simply titled "Maldives" but if one visits the Maldives Post site a list of philatelic items is to be found with the Maldives Post logo at the top of the page though this page has not been updated since 2016 and in any case features the same sort of issues as the site accessible from WOPA.

   So, we may conclude that after a short "review" WOPA decided that "Maldives" stamps should once more be offered through its website though I have not seen any explanation being offered as to how WOPA arrived at that decision and secondly, for the present at least, WOPA is being discrete about its connections to the sale of these stamp issues by not depicting Maldives' logo on its home page unlike all the other countries which it lists. Collectors may need to wear a dirty raincoat and shuffle furtively through a dark back entrance to buy these "Maldives" stamps!

  At least Maldives is no longer a member of The Commonwealth so really I don't have to worry about adding its stamps to my Commonwealth collection but one fears that it may not be too long before the stamps of Solomon Islands or Sierra Leone find their way on to WOPA's site.

   Meanwhile this week's products from Stamperija do not have the names of Commonwealth countries printed on them being inscribed Tchad, Central African Republic and Guines so we are spared having to write about any of those this time.

  🇿🇦 The South African Post Office issued 5 se-tenant self-adhesive stamps in sheets of 10 (2 strips of 5) on 18 May 2017 on the subject of "South African Bee-eaters". This is an exceptionally attractive and beautifully designed set. Rating:- *****.

  🇬🇬 Guernsey Post philatelic bureau tweeted on 18 May 2017 that its Post and Go kiosk GG01 located in Smith Street post office had that day dispensed its "Lighthouses" stamps with an additional inscription to welcome the passengers of the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth into port.

  🇬🇧 The latest (June) edition of Gibbons Stamp Monthly is particularly interesting with a good deal of text dealing with the 50th anniversary of the issue of the first Machin Head definitives by the British Post Office along with the vexed subject of whether or not the recently issued £5 stamp which commemorates the 65th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II should be accorded a place in the main listing of the Stanley Gibbons Catalogue given that it was put on sale at only 27 post offices throughout the entire United Kingdom. 

  The Catalogue editor has come down firmly on the side of giving the stamp full listing. In his discussion of the subject he puts forward the view that the limited sites of issue is due to the Post Office choosing not to handle the stamps in its various branches rather than to any fault on the part of Royal Mail which produced the stamp, they being two completely separate businesses. 

  The editor also makes the point that the widely held view that a stamp catalogue editor can influence stamp issuing policy is actually false. I'm sure he is right about this if one thinks about his direct influence on issuing. However the editor certainly will influence collectors in their decision making about whether or not to buy a particular stamp. If the editor does not list a certain stamp then collectors are far less likely to feel a pressure put upon them to buy such a stamp and therefore a stamp-issuing authority's profits fall because of reduced sales and they are far less likely to issue such a stamp again. Hence the editor may indeed influence a country's stamp issuing policy indirectly and thus influence the new issue market by a roundabout route.

  At the end of all this, at any rate, the new £5 stamp has been given full catalogue listing though I suspect the reason why this is so is given by the editor's comment, "...bearing in mind that the vast majority of collectors will expect the new £5 to be listed the decision is an easy one. It will be found on the page facing this article".

994. More Caribbean Chinese Stamps; WOPA Features Maldives Again.

  The number of products that IGPC is putting out that clearly originate from its Beijing office continues to increase and these products are frequently quite bizarre when put in the context of the countries whose names appear on these items. You really have to ask why countries like Grenada and Guyana should have stamps with a lot of Mandarin inscriptions incorporated in their design. I doubt that many people in the 2 territories are fluent in Mandarin to the extent that they benefit from having the language inscribed on their postage stamps.

  The latest such products from these territories commemorate the 20th anniversary of the return of the former British colony of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty and are clearly produced for sale to stamp collectors in China and not to letter writing members of the Grenadian and Guyanese public. I don't expect that the issues featured below will find themselves a place in the main listing of Stanley Gibbons Catalogue or, for that matter, find themselves being sold over ordinary post office counters for use on ordinary mail. Interestingly, though, the face values are not particularly high and are consistent with local postal rates so, who knows?, Grenadans and Guyanese may well be using them on their mail as I write this.

   🇬🇩 Grenada - 9 May 2017 - 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to sovereignty of The Chinese People's Republic - 8 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

  🇬🇾 Guyana - 5 May 2017 - 20th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to sovereignty of The Chinese People's Republic - 10 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

  You ask yourself, as reviled as IGPC is among many collectors, how does it keep going in these modern times? Three answers are:- 1. Producing items that appeal to the large Chinese market as above. 2. Producing and selling stamps with extremely high face values as in Blog 992 - you don't have to sell a lot to make a profit. 3. Cashing in on celebrities particularly by cynically exploiting the memories of those popular figures who died tragically such as Diana Princess Of Wales and President John Kennedy:-

  Guyana - 5 April 2017 - Birth Centenary of former US President John Kennedy - 3 miniature sheets - one containing 3 different stamps, one containing 4 different stamps and one containing 6 different stamps. Rating:- 0.

  WOPA seems once more to be dealing with the stamps of Maldives and states that "WOPA is proud to be able to offer the Maldives stamps direct from Maldives Post on its site".

  🇲🇻 It would appear that WOPA has finished its assessment of issues inscribed "Maldives" and is content that as the Maldives Post website has a page which lists these issues for sale (all from 2015 and 2016 and all typical Stamperija products) collectors will feel that they are justified in doing so. I offer no further comment. It will be interesting to see if the Maldives Post website philatelic page lists the locally produced stamps that seem to be actually sold for use on the mail in the islands.

 It will also be interesting to see if WOPA takes on the likes of Solomon Islands, Sierra Leone and Mozambique in the future.